Sacrifice
by Animelover007
Summary: Erika had only ever known the safety of her village. Now she is chosen as this years Sacrifice to the Demon who dwells in Darkwood forest. What if, instead of the demon, she finds a sweet man in its place? What happens when she discovers that he is the demon? An AU Juugo one shot. Rated M for implied and un-implied situations.


Sacrifice.

For some people, it's an act of giving up something valued for the sake of something else. Ever since I was a child, this word has had a different meaning in my village. Ever since I turned six, my village has chosen one woman to go into the Darkwood Forest for a journey she must make alone. Whether she came back or not determined success. Up until I was twelve, I had thought it had been a failure each time the woman did not return, since the other villagers were always sorrowful and depressed when the third day came and went. Often times I would see the women's mother and father crying at the loss of their daughter. The first time a woman came back, I found out that that was a failure. It was also when I found out those women were sent into the Darkwood Forest to die.

My mother once told me when I was very young that a demon lived deep in the heart of the forest, and on the stillest nights, you could hear it roaring and tearing apart the ancient trees that surrounded it. For a moment, I felt sorry for this demon, this monster that lived in solitude, but that was a very long time ago. My resentment for this demon rose to life when my elder sister was chosen for the Sacrifice. The last time I saw her, it had been dripping grey tears from swollen clouds, and only a handful had arrived to send her farewells on her "Journey". My mother and father had hugged her close and pressed sweet bread, a delicacy that we could not easily afford, into her hands and left to return to our home in silence.

"Sister, you'll come back like the girl last year, right?" I had asked her, looking up at her with grey eyes as dark as the clouds crowding the sky. My sister was very beautiful, inheriting my father's bright blue eyes and my mother's golden hair. Had they chosen someone else, she would have gotten married to the baker's son, or the miller's nephew. She had been courted so many times by so many boys, I had grown jealous of my elder sister, yet she would always tell me I was pretty in my own way. Short black hair as dark as a ravens, grey eyes that shined like silver in the light, a round face that influenced my gentle nature. These words, while kind, only made my self-consciousness of my appearance grow larger.

"Maybe. They say the demon only let the girl go because she was impure. Just wait a few days little sister, I will come back." With that she turned and left, her long skirt swishing the ground as she walked the seldom used path into the Darkwood Forest. I waited there, gripping my own skirt until the shine from her hair disappeared from my sight, and waited longer still until the rain threatened to chill me to the bone, forcing me to go home and listen to the wails of my mother and the weeps of my father. My sister did not come home. Not that day, or the day after, or the day after that.

And now, four years after that day, it was my turn. It was not a pre-decided thing, it was always at random. There was always a prerequisite for the people that were forced to die. One: they must be female. Two: they must be seventeen years of age. And three: they must be pure. In these last five years since the first girl had come back alive, more and more girls have lost their virginity. This year I, besides the mayor's daughter, was the only one left.

"This…_journey_ will take three days and nights. At the end of the path, you will be encountered by the Demon of the Darkwood Forest. If you should survive, then collect a token of your success and return to the village. Do you accept this task Erika," the large man, the mayor, said, completing his yearly speech. It wasn't a question, it never was. Yet despite every nerve in my body telling me otherwise, I said yes. He nodded his head and folded his arms behind his back, stretching the thin cotton shirt across his belly. He was grotesque, in both his character and his ways. I looked away from him to my mother, a once beautiful woman who had aged greatly in the last four years. Her golden hair had turned to gray straw with the same consistency, and her porcelain pale skin had turned a sickly gray. She did not look at me, choosing instead to look at the ground beneath my feet. My gaze turned to my father next, a strong man who wanted sons, yet was proud to have had my sister. Never me, I was but a disappointment, a pale comparison to my beautiful sister. He settled his hard stare on me, the only amount of kindness he would grant me before my death. His mouth was set in a firm line and the lines on his face were etched with resentment. I didn't know if he was angry at the village for taking his two daughters away, or if he was angry that I was not a boy, but maybe in the end I didn't want to know. These people, my parents, offered me no farewells, or words of kindness, and neither did I ask for them. I took one last look at this dreary village, this place where I had spent my life growing up and fearing the Darkwood Forest like everyone else, and turned to look at the edge of the forest.

Its trees were tall and imposing, their bare branches stretched towards the sky in a desperate cry for sun light. A wish that will never be answered in this mist filled valley that always loomed between dusk and darkness. I looked back to the few people who had made the short trip out to the edge to see me off, and saw the collective total of eight people out of the two hundred people who depended upon my death to appease the demon that threatened us all. I would not be missed, that much was certain. Without a second look towards my parents, I hugged the small pack, filled with enough food to last me the few days until my imminent death, close to my chest and walked forward, intruding into the forest's cold embrace.

Many a man had walked into this forest, most of them were local woodsmen, like my father, and of those men, only the ones experienced with the plants and wildlife survived. The path I walked was a special path, one lined in thorn patches to protect the people from the wild boars and wolves that inhabited these parts. I thought to myself that it would be a better fate to be torn apart by wolves than be tortured by the demon, but then the demon would invade the village and murder everyone there. While I walked this desolate path, I thought to remember every piece of information I had heard from the villagers about the demon. He was tall, nearly nine feet, with bright red skin stretched tight over his malformed body and glowing red eyes that transformed into a sickly yellow. Teeth so sharp they threatened to spill your blood and shred your skin, and claws so deadly they took down ancient trees with one sweep of his mighty arm. These were what was told by the elders, yet through tellings and re-tellings, his form had grown more grotesque and horrifying. The only bit of truth that was brought to light by the only girl to have survived his encounter before going mad with nightmare was his red and yellow eyes.

I shivered to myself, holding the pack of food against my body in comfort, and looked up to the sky above me as it dripped wet tears. I had been granted a single blanket to protect me against the forest's cruel emotions, and had decided it be best served to cover myself when nightfall came. For now I would be drenched, but the chill the wind and rain provided me kept my mind alert to the forest around me. This forest was called "Darkwood" with great reason. The trees, their bark, their leaves and needles, and their wood and pulp were all a black color. Whether it was because of the lack of sunlight or the moss and fungus that grew on the trees and shrubbery, no one knew. A howl in the near distance caught my attention and I momentarily stopped in my tracks, eyes darting back and forth over the path ahead and everything near it. Along with my food and my blanket, I had been provided a knife to keep myself safe from the carnivorous animals. Ironic since I was being sent out to die by the clawed hands of a demon.

That's how the first day went, walking quietly along this bare path, listening to the croaks and howls and the occasional snort. When nightfall came, I gathered what braches I could reach from the trees and collected the dry underbrush, making a small fire to ward away feral animals. I took the blanket around myself, wondering if this is what my elder sister experienced in her first night.

**~-The Second Day-~**

A howl resounded in the distance once again, startling me awake. One could not sleep in this deadly forest, I should have known better than to have tried. I stood up on shaky legs, struggling to keep from falling over as I picked up my pack and huddled the blanket closer to my shaking body_. For what reason did I have for doing this?_ I must not have been the only one who had these thoughts. Many of the other girls before me must have tried escaping their inevitable fate. It is only because my father is a woodsman that I know better than to escape into the forest, knowing as he does that the forest animals would hunt me down if I were to leave the protective path. Even if I knew at the end of this protective path would be a monster, waiting to kill me for its own sick amusement.

**~-The Third Day-~**

I was afraid. Not of the demon, not of the wolves, I was afraid of this strange yellow light that was streaming down upon me. What was this? Was this the so called…sunlight? It was so warm, so gentle. If this is what God had given me as a farewell present, then I gladly accepted His gift. My happiness was soon interrupted when there was an inhuman roar that sounded from far away, a roar far more terrifying than that of a feral wolf or a man-eating mountain lion. I took a slow, shuddery breath and continued walking once more, taking the knife out of the pack and holding it against my breast. To take my mind off of the demon and its lesser counterparts, I sang quietly to myself to dispel the wrecking havoc inside my mind and body.

**Flow gently, sweet Afton,  
amang thy green braes,  
Flow gently, I'll sing thee  
a song in thy praise;  
My Mary's asleep  
by thy murmuring stream,  
Flow gently, sweet Afton,  
disturb not her dream.**

The creaking and breaking of the trees ahead stopped me momentarily before growing silent once again.

**Thou stock dove whose echo  
resounds thro' the glen,  
Ye wild whistly blackbirds  
in yon thorny den,  
Thou green crested lapwing  
thy screaming forbear,  
I charge you, disturb not  
my slumbering fair.**

It was a song I had heard from when I was very small from my mother and had heard only once since my sister's death. My mother used to sing it so beautifully; it made my voice in comparison sound croak-ish and ugly. In my own ears it sounded hollow and dry, perhaps it was because I had not slept once in the three days of my forced exile, and my energy in this endeavor was wearing thin.

**How lofty, sweet Afton,  
thy neighboring hills,  
Far mark'd with the courses  
of clear winding rills;  
There daily I wander  
as noon rises high,  
My flocks and my Mary's  
sweet cot in my eye.**

My song slowed to a stop as I came across a small clearing filled with ripped carnage and fallen trees. The demon…he had been here. The wounds on the trees looked fresh, new. A few seconds earlier and I would have seen him, would have died. Suddenly, I didn't want to die, not when death was so close to me, practically staring me in the face. I grew light headed, but continued on, walking quickly, picking my way across the carnage of wood and bark and the sick disembowelment of several wolves. Their acidic smell invaded my nostrils and triggered my gag reflex several times as I passed strewn entrails and limbs. Once I got to the edge of the newly made clearing, I breathed a breath of whatever fresh air was available. I looked at the path ahead of me, and saw, with growing dismay, that it was coming to an end. I started to sing quietly to myself once again, knowing full well that it would be the last song I would hear in this life time as my fatigue slowly crept up on me.

**How pleasant thy banks  
and green valleys below,  
Where, wild in the woodlands,  
the primroses blow;  
There oft, as mild evening  
weeps over the lea,  
The sweet-scented birk shades  
my Mary and me.**

**Thy crystal stream, Afton,  
how lovely it glides,  
And winds by the cot where  
my Mary resides;  
How wanton thy waters  
her snowy feet lave,  
As, gathering sweet flowerets,  
she stems thy clear wave.**

I slowly came to a stop, my heart hammering inside my chest as I looked at the outcropping of dark gray rock hanging over a cave strung with moss and shrubs. I could not see inside of the cave, and did not notice the multiple groups of birds I had never seen. No. I had instead focused my attention on the tall man in front of me. He wasn't from the village, that much was certain by his blazing orange hair and non-olive toned skin. I took a step towards him, whether I did so because of my fear of death, or because I was tired of being alone in this forest filled with imminent death I wasn't sure.

He said something then, but I couldn't hear it because my blood was rushing into my ears. By his expression, it looked like he was concerned for me. I opened my mouth to ask him what he had said, but all that came out was a sound that reminded me of dry leaves in the wind, and I soon fell to my knees and onto the ground amid the tall grass. The soft grass caressed my face and I let my eyes watch as the orange haired man rushed over to me, felt his footsteps pound the ground. He started speaking again as he pressed his face close to mine, yet I still couldn't hear what he was saying. As my eyes slid shut, and my fatigue crept into every available crevice in my head, I noticed one other thing about this man that set him apart from everyone I had ever seen in my village. This man had red-orange eyes. Like the ones the demon was said to possess. Before I could muster up a single thought on this strange anomaly, my mind finally shut down, my eyes slipping shut as they grew hazy. Closing on the orange haired man beside me. My mind sang the last verse of the sweet poem.

**Flow gently, sweet Afton,  
amang thy green braes,  
Flow gently, sweet river,  
the theme of my lays;  
My Mary's asleep  
by thy murmuring stream,  
Flow gently, sweet Afton,  
disturb not her dreams.**

~-OoOoO-~

"_Mother, what is the demon like?" a little girl asked, tugging on her mother's skirt, interrupting her work as a seamstress._

"_The Demon is very cold, and lives alone in the center of the forest," the mother answered, sticking pins in the fabric of a dress._

"_What does he look like mother?" the little girl asked as she looked up at her mother with questioning eyes._

"_Some say he has a deformed body and the blood of his victims has stained his skin red," she answered, pulling a thread through a needle._

"_What does he eat mother?" the little girl asked, tugging on the end of her mother's skirt._

"_He eats ugly children like you, Erika!" the mother said, turning her head to show her daughter her blood red face and sharpened teeth spread in a wide smile before she opened her mouth wide and attacked her._

I woke with a start, my heart pounding as I looked up through unseeing eyes at the rock ceiling above me."Where…?" I said aloud, sitting up and noticing an animal skin slip down around my waist. I looked down at the make-shift bed I was resting on, seeing it was a large pile of dried grass and more animal skins. I took the covers off of me and stood up, looking around the small cave for my pack. Upon finding it, I walked outside, planning to get back on the path and continue to my death. I looked around outside the cave, looking for another path besides the one I had arrived on, but found none. Was there a mistake?

"You shouldn't be walking around yet, you should rest some more." I looked over to where the voice had been heard and saw the man from earlier standing there beside the entrance of the cave. While he sounded like a man, he couldn't have been more than a year or so older than me. Clad in a pair of short pants, and a frayed and torn make-shift cloak, it was all the more obvious that he wasn't from our village, or at least hadn't been there in years.

"You've been taking care of me?" I asked, somewhat incredulous.

"Yes, you've been asleep for two days, I was worried about you," he replied, walking towards me and feeling my forehead. Uncomfortable with his closeness I took a step back.

"I'm sorry for disturbing you, but I need to continue my journey," I told him, hugging my pack close to me as I looked into his red-orange eyes. I looked away, suddenly self-conscious of myself, and walked back to the path I had come from, wondering if in my delirium I had missed a fork in the path.

"What's your journey?" he asked, grabbing my arm to keep me from leaving.

"I have to find the demon that lives in the center of the forest, I think I made a wrong turn somewhere along the path," I responded.

"There's only the one path that leads from your village," he said, letting go of my arm when I looked at him confused.

"Then the demon…"

"He's not here right now. Take this chance to escape. To go back to your family." I looked away from him towards the forest, weighing my options against each other.

"Even if I did, I wouldn't be welcome there anymore," I answered, smiling at him sadly, "my fate now is to die at the hands of the demon."

"Why can't you go back? There was a girl who returned once, why can't you do the same?" he urged, questioned.

"That girl was strung up and hanged under the pretense of not 'completing' her journey," I answered sullenly, sitting down on the ground and weaving the long grass between my fingers. I looked up at his handsome face, seeing it twisted in grief at the news that the girl had been killed. "How did you know about that girl? Did you help her escape that time?"

He looked conflicted, torn between one answer and another. "She…she came at the right time…when the demon was gone and I was here," he said, wringing his hands nervously.

"Do you know this demon?"

"We…we go a long way back," he answered hesitantly.

"When he comes, will he…" I couldn't bring myself to say it. To admit to myself that this was my fate.

He didn't answer at first, choosing instead to look over at a little bird that had perched itself upon his shoulder. "Probably," he finally answered, softly stroking the little bird's head. "Are you sure you want to remain here? Knowing that the…demon…will kill you?"

"It's my fate to die, whether it is here, or in my village." I looked away sadly, upset at my predestined fate before growing shocked as strong arms enveloped me, holding me close to their warm body. Above me something rested on my head-his own?-before he started to speak.

"I'm sorry that you have to die. Just know that…that it's out of my power," he said softly as he knelt before me.

I sighed against his skin softly, breathing in his warm scent before speaking.

"I know. If you allow me, may I stay here and wait?" I asked transfixed on the little bird that twittered musically upon his shoulder. He nodded, and let me go, not looking at me as he rested back into a seated position. We didn't talk after that, we instead sat next to each other as multiple birds flew around us and others perched on his shoulders and outstretched limbs.

"For however long I have left, can you tell me your name?" I asked, watching as he stroked another small bird's feathers.

"My name is Juugo," he said, looking at me from the corner of his eye.

"Mine is Erika," I said, resting my head on his broad shoulder, watching the sunlight filter through the tree leaves, and the birds fly around us as my eyes closed on this peaceful moment.

Moments later, Juugo shook me from my silent thoughts with his deep, questioning voice. "What was that song…that song you were singing before?" he asked me.

"It's a poem, called _Sweet Afton_," I told him, opening my eyes and peeking up at him and looking at his face.

"Could you…would you sing it again?" he asked. From what I could see of his face, he was blushing lightly, so lightly I wasn't even sure I saw it.

"Mmm, my singing voice is bad. You should've heard my mother's, or my sister's. Theirs was beautiful," I murmured against him, curling up against his side.

"I like your voice, it's very…calming," he said, seeming to search for words.

"Th-thank you," I said feeling embarrassed since it was the first time someone had ever said my voice was anything other than cat-like.

"Will you sing then?" he asked once more, looking down at me with a small smile. I looked down at the ground, blushing before I opened my mouth and started to sing. He is kind. He is caring. He is like the first ray of sunshine I had ever seen in my entire life: warm and inviting. If…if it turns out that the demon does not kill me…could I remain here by his side? While I wanted to voice this question, I couldn't bring myself to form the words, to stop the song after I saw his face, smiling sweetly down at me while I sang to him.

''_disturb not her dreams' indeed.'_

**~-0o0o0-~**

I woke up later on, and found myself alone, lying on the ground with Juugo's cloak covering my body, surrounded by the gray dusk and the black braches and leaves of the surrounding trees. I slowly sat up, wondering to myself where Juugo had gone, and if, since Juugo wasn't here, the demon was somewhere close? A snap to my left sent me into a panic as I looked towards the forest and saw nothing but empty blackness. Another snap, this time to my right had me crawling backwards into the mouth of the cave, the best hiding place I could see and use that was, unfortunately, out in the open for whoever, or whatever, was out there. As the snapping sound got closer and louder, my heart was sent steadily into a panic until I remembered the knife I had brought with me. The knife I had left in my pack that was no more than four feet away from the edge of the small clearing.

Sighing angrily to myself I picked myself up off the ground and slowly approached the mouth of the cave, looking out into the darkness, seeing and hearing no one. A deadly calm, no late night owls out on the hunt, no wolves signaling to their pack, not even crickets, such was this deadly calm. I took a few hesitant steps forward, breaking the silence with my soft footsteps, silently cursing myself in my mind each time I made the slightest sound. When the first tree branch snapped under foot within the forest, my heart rate jumped once more. As I quickened my pace, so did the snaps of the twigs and branches. When I finally broke into a small run towards my pack, I heard an inhuman growl that threatened to freeze the blood in my veins and stop me in my place. I moved my body all the more faster, using the fear that gripped my heart to move my legs forward. As I knelt in front of my pack, I sent furtive glances towards the sounds emitting from the forest. When at last I pulled my knife free of its sheath I stood up, pointing its tip towards my would-be attacker. With each step I grew more and more restless until a body barreled towards me, a body with wild, orange hair.

"Juugo?!" I whispered aloud, the knife in my hands falling to point its tip towards the ground. I was confused, why did this seemingly sweet man look so angry, so deranged, so…blood-thirsty? As he broke free of the trees surrounding the clearing I caught a glimpse of his eyes before he barreled into me. One was the same red-orange I had seen hours earlier. The other…the other was a yellow color set in a black pool of ink.

He grabbed me by the neck, lifting me high into the air. His fingers curled tightly, forcing me to drop my edged weapon in a feeble attempt to claw at the hand suffocating me. I looked at him, small tears stinging my eyes as I fought for breath, and saw only the gray clouds above, swirling the sky into a mix of storm and night while this once kind man robbing me of life.

"You look familiar," he said in a deep, rough voice, so unlike the voice I had heard Juugo use hours earlier. Why was he doing this? Was this what he meant by the demon not being here hours before? I opened my mouth to try and ask him this simple question, but instead received a tighter grip on my neck.

"I'm Erika, reme…ember?" I rasped looking down at this once kind man through tear filled eyes as my air supply slowly ran out.

"No…the woman…the woman from years ago," he said looking frustrated that he couldn't remember her. "_Why do you look like her?!_" he shouted, slamming me into the ground and straddled my stomach; his hand never letting go of my neck but loosening his grip enough to let me breath and speak.

"I-I don't know, wh-what was her name?" I said, trying unsuccessfully to staunch my tears and steady my voice. Such rough treatment I had only ever experienced from my father and his so-called 'discipline' had made me small, meek.

"A blonde woman…it was a blonde woman that came to me," he said.

"My sister…my sister was blonde. _You monster! You killed her! You killed my sister!_" I shouted up at him, anger swimming in every pore of my body

"Yes, that same look of anger… I remember her, she was just like the rest of them…a _whore!" _he spat, grinningmaliciously.

"You're lying," I rasped before he grabbed my arm and pulled it up above my head and let go of my neck to bring up the other one, locking both of my arms in his grasp before roughly taking my chin and making me look at him.

"No, I'm not. She wasn't pure, just like the rest of them, and for that they died beneath my hand. But you're different," he said, moving his head closer to mine, a pink tongue slithering out between pale lips to lick at the tender flesh of my neck and ear. I flinched, my face flushing with embarrassment at the sound that squeaked out of my mouth. He smirked against my cheek, grinning, and rasped with want, "You're different, I can tell. I can see it in your eyes, see it in your face and voice that you're a virgin. The first one I've had in ages."

My eyes widened in shock and disgust at his words, as well as fear. "_What did you do to my sister?!_" I asked him, mustering as much anger and resentment as I had in me. His grin deepened as he leaned in close to me, breathing heavily in my ear.

"You'll find out soon enough," he said, bringing his head down to the crook of my shoulder and bit there roughly, breaking the skin and making me grit my teeth in pain as he swept his tongue across the wound once, twice, and then again. This wasn't Juugo, that much I was aware of as he took the collar of my dress and tore it away from me, ripping the fabric down the middle, revealing my cloth covered chest to him.

"Juugo please…please don't do this," I said, trying to reason with whatever shred of humanity he had left in him, but my attempts got laughed at as he pulled away the cloth covering my breasts and grinned down at the globes of flesh that moved up and down in accordance to my breathing.

"No amount of begging is going to stay my hand," he growled, bringing his free hand down to roughly touch, to grope, my chest, sliding one of his legs in between mine and bringing it up to rest against my center.

"Please not you. Not by your hand. Not by the only man who ever treated me kindly," I rambled before he took my mouth with his, moving his lips roughly against mine and forcing my mouth open, slipping his tongue inside and rubbing it against mine. It was my first kiss, and probably my last once this whole endeavor was over, once he had gotten his pleasure, he would most likely kill me. And as I came closer to resigning myself to submission, to letting him do as he pleased, I thought to what he said before. That when I had asked what he had done to my sister, he had answered 'You'll find out'. Well now I know that this is what he had done, and knowing that he had violated my sister and the countless other both before and after her, I couldn't let him have his way one more time.

When he let go of my mouth and licked the skin of neck and collarbone, I turned my head away from his ministrations to look for the knife I had dropped in my confusion and found, just out of reach of my bound hands, the handle of the blade a mere inch away from the tips of my fingers. I struggled against his hold in an attempt to stretch my arms further upwards towards the knife. He reacted how I expected him to by pressing my wrists into the dirt and stretching my arms upwards, all the while digging the nails of his other hand into my side as he engulfed the tip of my breast with his mouth. Struggling all the more, my fingertips just barely brushed against the bone handle as I worked on sliding it towards my palm. When the knife was close enough, I gripped it in my hand and swept the blade across Juugo's wrist, making him look up in astonishment and confusion as he released my hands and inspected his own as red blood fell from the cut I had made. At least this way I knew that he was, in fact, human. Taking advantage of his confusion, I scrambled away backwards, swiping the air in front of me several times, marking his bare chest with thin scratches. When I stopped waving the knife around, we stayed where we were, staring at each other, taking the other in.

What I saw was a man with different colored eyes and wild orange hair, a mix between anger and confusion on his face as he looked back at me, scrutinizing me. What he saw of me was a mystery, but I could assume. A girl that was not yet a woman huddled against herself in a pitiful attempt to save her chastity while her clothes were torn apart, covering her waist and the only cover she had above was her crossed arms and the only protection she had was a small knife that couldn't do any damage against a wild dog on its best day. I was pitiable; even I knew that as I stood up and backed away from him, planning to escape into the woods to anywhere but here. But I had to know…I had to know why he was doing this.

"Why…why do you do any of this?" I asked, struggling to keep my voice from going out of control, to keep it from either going to ruin or shouting at him in anger.

"I only started when your sister shamelessly offered her body to me in exchange for her life," he sneered, smirking widely when he saw the look of anger that flashed across my face before I reined it in and kept control of it.

"No. I mean…why do you demand…a sacrifice? Why do want to kill one of us so badly in exchange for all of us?" I asked more clearly this time. My question caught him slightly off guard, but it seemed like it was a question he had received more than once on this occasion.

"Because it's in my nature," he said simply, standing up from his crouched position and slowly approached me.

"But why?" I asked further, wanting to know that the answer wasn't that simple.

This time my question caught him fully off guard, like he had never been asked for a full explanation. He stopped in his tracks, his eyes focused on mine, like he was trying to search for an answer to his nature in them. "Because it's in my nature to kill," he said firmly, frustrating me slightly before continuing, "My whole family killed because it was in their nature, they couldn't help that. _But they were judged for it!_ They all died because of something they couldn't stop on their own!" he shouted, stalking towards me again, his one red-orange eye turning the same black and yellow like the other. "Even when I was a child, they ran me out of my village! _Wanting to kill me for something I hadn't even done yet!_" he shouted once again, approaching me and making me take a step back for every step he took towards me. "Then when I found your village, I looked at it with the same contempt I had showed the people who killed my family, and killed anyone I saw just as I had my own. I was seven then when they gave me the first sacrifice in exchange for stopping my slaughter." He had backed me into a tree by now, advancing forward while I had nowhere to go. When he was a mere few inches away from me, he shot out his hand and grabbed mine, gripping it tightly, making me let go of the knife in pain, letting it fall to the ground once again uselessly as he brought my hand up above my head, pinning it to the tree before prying my other arm away from my naked chest and brought it up to join the other. "Then they banish me to the deepest recesses of these woods and judge me from afar. You judge me too, don't you," he said, his face near mine, his lips brushing my cheek as he dug the fingers from his free hand into my bare side in anger and frustration. As his lips brushed against mine in the slightest touch, I knew what I would say to him. I could despise what he did to my sister and all the other girls he had encountered in these woods, but I could not bring myself to hate him, to judge him. Not when he made me want to feel sorry for him and his loneliness.

"I can't judge you…because I don't understand you," I told him quietly, looking into his black and yellow eyes, seeing his confusion at my words bloom in them. "How could I ever judge you for something you can't control?" I asked him softly. He looked back at me skeptically, harshly, not believing what I had said.

"But you hate me because I killed your sister, don't you." It was not a question, more so it seemed like he wanted me to hate him, to despise him, to give him a reason.

"I hate the demon that killed my sister, but I don't hate you, the only man who treated me kindly," I told him, denying everything he said, everything he wanted me to say.

"Stop it. You're lying! You hate me! _Tell me the truth!"_ he yelled, pushing my arms back into the tree, pressing himself against me so hard it felt like the tree might bend and snap at the sheer force.

"I'm not lying, Juugo," I told him before he threw me to the ground and mounted me once again.

"_Don't say my name! Tell me you hate me!"_ he yelled, ripping away what had once been my skirt and roughly spreading my legs apart and inserting himself in between them.

"I can't tell you that!" I shouted at him, wriggling under his weight as he settled himself upon me.

"Why not?" he asked roughly, his yellow eyes burning into mine.

"Because I love you." He stopped all movement after that, his shocked expression burrowing into my determined one, seeking to see if I was speaking the truth.

"That's insane," he said simply, moving off of me and sitting a few feet away from where I lay mostly naked, his strong back and wild hair all I could see of him.

"I know it's insane for me to love you, but I do! Even if I've only known you for a day this feeling would be the same if I had known you for a thousand!" I told him, sitting up and kneeling a few feet behind him.

"No, it's insane that you could love a monster like me," he said aloud, looking back at me with red-orange eyes and a sorrowful expression.

"No it's not," I replied belligerently, wrapping my arms around his broad shoulders and back and pressing my palms against his chest as I laid my chin upon his shoulder and looked at him with gray eyes.

"Look at what I did to you! How can you love me after that?!" he cried, looking down at my naked body before looking back up at my eyes, searching them for an answer.

"Because it's part of your nature," I said, quoting him from earlier, "How can I claim to love you if I didn't also love your other half?" I asked him, kissing his bare shoulder before looking back up at him. He looked tired, weary, of this dance, but before he succumbed to my words, he asked one more question.

"Can you love me, even if I tried to kill you again?" he asked me softly, wrapping his arm around my bare waist and bringing me around himself to seat me atop his own, his lips brushing softly against my own as he looked up at me through veiled eyes, as if seeking redemption for his past sins.

"I'll love you until the bitter end, Juugo," I whispered, pressing my lips firmly against his own in a mix of passion and want, of love and affection as he brought me down to the ground and laid atop my naked body, pressing fervent kisses upon heated skin, and exchanging a past of pain with a moment of pleasure as we connected our bodies in a tangle of limbs, heat and love.

~-Epilogue-~

In the coming months they experienced something they had never received: another's love, and they flourished in it as the months went on. When next the Sacrifice came, they divulged their secret love to her and had her take part in a scheme to stop the bitter tradition. They had that year's sacrifice walk the lonesome path home, displaying to the people a lock of orange hair and a gruesome tale of the demon's demise, telling the villagers and their leader of the rotten corpse she had discovered in her wake at the heart of the Blackwood forest. Erika and Juugo had no way of knowing if their plan had worked or not, they had only to wait the twelve months until the next Sacrifice came. Through their waiting Juugo experienced urges to kill, to slaughter, and each time Erika let him follow through on these urges. Letting him attack her and ravage her and let him take her roughly until these urges passed and the bitter moment that had befallen them both became sweet and gentle as he took her again. When the year had passed and the next Sacrifice had not arrived, they breathed a sigh of relief and indulged in each other once more, taking pleasure in their company and their solitude and the sunshine that rained down upon them as they gave each other love and received it in turn. They had in each other what they had originally lost: a family.

_~fin~_

Sweet Afton written by Robert Burns, set to the music by Jonathan E. Spilman.


End file.
